"'WHAT DO YOU WANT HERE?'" (p. 68).
"Woe to you and to me," replied the Count, with pale lips. "I heard the giants' cries of rage, and hoped you were paying for your disobedience with your life. But it has happened otherwise, and now I and my daughter must suffer because you, you insolent fellow, disobeyed my commands and entered the giants' territories; for it has been made known to me that to-morrow the mighty lord of the giants, the Prince of the Infernal Regions, will appear, and demand my daughter or me as a sacrifice; but before that you, you miserable fellow, shall suffer all the agonies of torture, as a punishment for bringing me into this trouble.
"Seize him!" he cried to the servants who were standing in the entrance-hall. His command was at once obeyed, when the Count's daughter, who had listened with glowing cheeks to the shepherd's story, threw herself on her knees and implored for delay.
"Dearest father," she cried, "should you not rather endeavour to make use of this brave youth for our deliverance than put him to the torture? He has overcome three giants; surely he will be able to vanquish the Prince of the Infernal Regions."
"SHE IMPLORED FOR DELAY" (p. 70).
The Count remained for a few moments in deep thought, and then acknowledged that his daughter's suggestion was both good and clever. He asked the shepherd if he were willing to expiate his crime by a combat with the Evil One, and the young man, with a grateful look at his deliverer, at once agreed. With the first dawn of morning he rose from his couch, for he now recalled the words about overcoming the Evil One, and hastened to the first valley, where in the castle stood the cup with the inscription:—
Who drinks of this cup
Shall overcome the Evil One.